This week a Taco Bell customer called to complain about not getting enough meat in his XL Chalupas. Taco Bell manager Cynthia Thompson apologized that the business was about to close for the night. The customer spat out racial expletives and threated to ‘redecorate the place’. He then drove back to the Taco Bell and proceeded to fire-bomb the drive-thru. No one was hurt.
Last month Jeremy Combs, another Taco Bell customer, brandished a shotgun at a different Taco Bell drive-thru to protest the server neglecting to provide him with hot sauce.

“Two cars in front of me, a black Jetta lingered at the pick-up window for what felt like an astonishingly long time — time of course being relative, with no minutes ever lasting longer than those spent anticipating burritos. In front of me, a man in a green Explorer waited patiently until, for whatever reason, the man in the blue Mazda Tribute right behind me — who had passed the menu board but not yet paid — started honking.

Green Explorer-guy got out of his car, walked right past mine, and started slamming his hands on the windshield of the Tribute, yelling, “Give some respect! Give some respect!” It was terrifying and baffling. Respect for whom? The overworked Taco Bell employees? Black Jetta? The sanctity of the drive-thru experience? He didn’t say…”

After reading these accounts, I too felt terrified and baffled.

Not being a Taco Bell customer myself, I am left with 5 burning questions:

1. Why do so many Taco Bell customers go absolutely bonkers when running into problems with their food orders?

2. What about Taco Bell’s food makes it so appealing to people with an obviously impaired ability to tolerate frustration?

3. Do Taco Bell employees get danger pay?

4. Has Taco Bell considered recruiting Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to manage their drive thru establishments?

5. What the hell is a Chalupa?

Please feel free to offer any insights you might have in the comments section below

Two customers with the same exact complaint contact customer service representatives to voice their dissatisfactions. One of them expresses their problem calmly and with civility while the other, with the exact same complaint, explodes in hostility and aggression. This rather common situation raises 3 questions:
1. What is it that accounts for the huge difference in the two customers’ complaining behavior?

2. How should customer service representatives respond differently to each of these customers?

3. Can management mitigate the impact of hostile customers on frontline employees?

A new study in the Journal of Service Management examined the different emotions we bring to complaining situations such as rage, regret, and anxiety. They found that one emotion was more prominent in fueling customer hostility than all others—frustration.

Customers who experienced high frustration tended to bring a significant amount of hostility and aggression to their interactions with customer service representatives, making them extremely emotionally challenging for the frontline representatives laboring to assist them.

In my book The Squeaky Wheel, I discuss the various ways in which how dealing with hostile customers negatively impacts the productivity and mental health of customer service and call center employees. I also discuss and give examples of the steps companies can take to mitigate these effects, as well as the managerial models that have been proven effective in doing so. Therefore, understanding that frustration is often the main driver of customer hostility means that customer service practices need to be adapted to consider the following guidelines for dealing with hostile complaints:

1. The only way to attain a satisfactory service recovery in such situations is to first manage (and reduce) the customer’s hostility—otherwise the hostile complaining behavior will persist or even increase (see my article: The Antidote to Anger and Frustration).

2. Customer service representatives must therefore postpone entering into a discussion about potential remedies and solutions to the problem and allow the customer to fully explain their frustration and the situation creating it.

4. Customers who feel their emotions were understood and validated will immediately feel less frustrated and be more open to service recovery efforts (watch short video: How to Apologize to Customers).

5. Frontline employees must manage significant amounts of stress when performing service recoveries in this way. To continue functioning at the highest levels they will need their own support and empathy from their managers and supervisors.

CONCLUSION: In order to perform effective service recoveries and sustain a productive staff, both frontline employees and their supervisors/managers must be trained to express support and empathy in and after encounters with highly emotional and hostile customers.

Customer Service Week arrives every first week in October with about as much media attention and fanfare as Physician’s Assistant Day on October 6 (remember to smile when you hand them your sample) and Leif Erikson Day on October 9 (don’t forget to order your Dragon Boat cake). Yet, I would argue that customer service week is far more important than Leif Erikson Day, and not just because Leif Eriskon is dead.
Theoretically, customer service week is an opportunity for companies to show appreciation to their customer service employees as much as it is to show appreciation for their actual customers. Indeed, in most cases, it is the employees who need the appreciation more, much, much more. In my book The Squeaky Wheel, I devote an entire chapter to the stresses suffered by customer-service and call-center employees as well as what companies could do to mitigate such stresses. In addition, in a recent article in Psychology Today (The Last Bullying Frontier) I wrote about how many members of the public bully call-center employees and the impact their hostility has on the physical and especially the mental health of call-center workers.

As a response to the article I received many emails and comments from call-center employees (none from companies or call-center managers). To bring home the importance of Customer Service Week as an opportunity for companies to support, encourage, and recognize the efforts of their customer service employees, especially those who work in call-centers, here are quotes from five call-center employees who commented on the article, the stresses of their jobs and the impact those stresses have on their lives and happiness:

Quotes from Call-Center Employees about Job Stress

1. “I get callers that forget I'm a human and not the mere personification of their frustrations. I can understand their frustration, but I am not paid to be their punching bag… I sometimes see fellow employees in tears.”

2. “I've worked at two centers and I've left both after hitting breaking point with the abuse suffered. The first time I quit I took a month off before I was ready to try it again, this time in a significantly different field. The second time I quit saw a few months of daily binge drinking, serious depression, failed therapy sessions and finally starting to settle down after getting onto antidepressants… I honestly can't recommend this kind of work to any sane person.”

3. “There is an attitude among many Americans that anyone who dares to approach them for a sale deserves abuse.”

4. “Call center survivor here...Over the course of six years in tech support, I developed an aversion to phones. Every time the phone rings I get a knot of anxiety in my gut... an implicit sense of fear and dread. I've talked to others who experience the same issue, and many of us can no longer comfortably talk on the phone in our personal lives…And based on the number of people I've talked to who experience it, I can't help but think it's massively common in the industry.”

5. “Thank you for this article! My husband currently works for a major cell phone service provider in their tech support division and puts up with the most insane human behavior.
We met while we both worked at a different call center, so I too know the abuses people are capable of and the toll it takes on the receiver… I hate seeing what it does to him, but we just cannot afford it [him leaving], especially in this economy. I just want to say to others, please, these representatives on the other end of the line are someone else’s loved ones. They have lives and families, just like you and no more deserve your anger and wrath any more than you would. They do not dictate company policy. They are just as much a slave to it as you are.”

Hopefully, both companies and customers can take heed and use Customer Service Week to raise awareness for the need to treat Customer Service Representatives with respect, civility, and appreciation for doing a job that is among the most stressful of all occupations.

According to recent reports, 14,000 people a year are erroneously declared dead by the Social Security Administration. CNN reported that one woman discovered the error at her bank where the manager informed her that she was deceased. He then added insult to death blow by confiscating her ATM card and cutting it in half right in front of her, clearly oblivious to the unfortunate symbolism of his gesture. The manager's utter lack of tact was dwarfed only by his greater disregard for customer service. Even if his actions were in accordance with bank regulations, his appalling lack of consideration for his customer's feelings indicates a problem with customer service that can only be described as…deadly.
Given how many people join the ranks of the ‘undead’ every year, banks, other financial institutions and even governmental agencies risk terrible damage to their reputations. One can find literally thousands of reports of such incidents, every single one of which seems to feature a financial or governmental agency displaying a complete lack of regard for the feelings (and mental health) of the customer or tax-payers in question. I came across virtually no accounts of bank managers or government agency representatives conveying compassion or understanding in these situations, or offering assistance and guidance in how the 'undead' in question can officially reanimate themselves.

While some victims’ initial response was to think the error quite hilarious, the thigh-slapping and giggles ceased rather quickly once the implications became clear. The Inspector General admits the biggest problem facing the ‘walking dead’ is that, “Erroneous death entries can lead to benefit termination and cause severe financial hardship and distress.” Further, being reanimated, at least bureaucratically, can take weeks and months of paperwork and appointments. In the meantime, the person faces not just financial hardships but the risk of identity theft as well.

The Undead Represent the Perfect Complaint Handling Opportunity

Banks, financial institutions and governmental agencies could easily turn these living-dead-people into their biggest fans and capitalize on the marketing and branding opportunities they present. All it would take to do so is to demonstrate basic care for their customers (or the tax payers who fund their agencies). For example, they could easily distribute customer service guidelines to their employees so they can better handle the situation when a dead customer walks in and stubbornly insists they are still alive. Specifically:

1. Instruct employees to handle ‘not-so-dead’ customers with both care and compassion.

2. Never argue with a customer about whether or not they are dead, especailly if they strongly feel otherwise.

3. Instruct employees to explain the error and its implications to the customer, state the banks limitations (e.g., “We’re so sorry but we are obliged to take your ATM card. However, don’t worry, we’ll issue you a new card as soon as the error is rectified and we’ll work with you to see if there’s anything we can do for you in the meantime.”)

4. Have available guidelines to give customers so they know how to remedy the situation. For example, the Identity Theft Resource Center recommends finding out who reported you as dead, getting a copy of the death certificate from the county clerk's or recorder's office where the death was reported, and filling out a form to amend the certificate. Then making an appointment at your local Social Security office to which you bring a photo ID and the certified copy of the amended death certificate.

5. Follow up with customers so they can be entered back into the system as soon as possible.

Following these steps would do much to mitigate the customer-service damage the bank or institution sustains. Instead of undead customers spreading negative word of mouth about how terribly the bank handled the situation (these days, stories about undead people spread like wildfire), they would let everyone they know how compassionate and caring their bank was and how lovely it was of them to follow-up with a phone to inquire about their efforts at bureaucratic ‘resurrection’.

Let’s be honest, when something this 'juicy' happens, everyone talks about it. By treating customers with compassion and offering them guidance and assistance, banks, financial institutions and local agencies could turn customer service death sentences into customers for life.

Most of us would like to consider ourselves kind, but are we? One of the situations in which we find it most challenging to maintain kindness is when voicing complaints to customer service representatives.
Kindness is easy when we’re playing with children or puppies, or helping an octogenarian blow out candles on their birthday cake so their dentures don’t land in the icing. The real test of kindness comes in situations involving frustration and irritation and when it comes to those, customer service calls are often at the top of our list.

How kind do you tend to be when calling a customer service hotline to complain?

When calling a customer service hotline have you ever done the following?

1. Raised your voice?

Never Rarely Only When They Deserve It

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2. Used profanity?

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3. Used insults or putdowns?

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4. Used disparaging non-verbal communications such as sighs, snorts, ach’s or ech’s?

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5. Used laughter or sarcasm to convey your disgust?

Never Rarely Only When They Deserve It

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6. Hung up on the representative?

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7. Threatened the representative in any way?

Never Rarely Only When They Deserve It

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8. Imitated the representative’s accent when telling your friends about the call?

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SCORING: *

0 – 5: Let me guess, you’re a cookie-baker, aren’t you? Cookies aside, you are truly a kind person, endowed with patience, understanding and good-will. If you make your case well, these qualities should also make you an effective complainer in customer service situations as representatives are more likely to help those who treat them with kindness and respect.

6 – 12: You are in the ‘ish’ category—you are kind’ish or kinda kind if you prefer. In other words, you have the capacity to be kind but you don’t always choose to use it. You might be letting your temper get the best of you in frustrating situations. When it comes to complaining effectively to companies and getting the result you want, you should consider doing that which is effective (using kindness and respect) as opposed to venting your emotions unproductively.

13 – 20: Yikes! Have you considered anger management? Certainly customer service calls can be frustrating but one thing is for sure, the person answering the call is not responsible for your problem. They are only there to help you and they can only do so within the limited constraints of their authority. Anger rarely makes our complaints more effective and after all, you would prefer to get a satisfying result, no?